The present invention relates to a system for producing a mail piece, and more particularly, it relates to a mail piece producing machine having a wide swath envelope printing module.
Many systems for directly producing mail pieces from the printed output of a data processing system have been proposed in the past. Systems that include a plurality of apparatus for producing a mail piece are well known, wherein the apparatus each include a printer for printing a document and a mail finishing unit for receiving the document from the first printer and combining the document with an envelope to form a mail piece. The mail finishing unit includes a mechanism for franking the mail piece.
The data processing system controls a printer to print documents which, after printing, pass, under the control of the data processing system, through a succession of stations such as a burster, an insert feed station, an address printer, a postage meter and the like.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,283,752; to Gombault et al.; issued Feb. 1st. 1994 discloses a mail preparation system wherein a data processing system controls a linear mail preparation apparatus. The data processing system controls a printer to print documents which, after printing, pass, under the control of the data processing system, through a succession of stations such as a burster, an insert feed station, an address printer, a postage meter and the like.
A system where an envelope form is printed in sequence with documents and later accumulated with the documents, then wrapped around the documents and sealed to form the mail piece is described in U.S. Pat. No.: 5,067,305 issued Nov. 26, 1991 to Baker et al.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,797,830 to Baggarly et al, describes an inserter system which has a capability to compute postage for a mail piece based upon predetermined weights for inserts included in the mail piece.
While such systems are perhaps suitable for their intended purpose heretofore no system has been available to users who wish to produce a number of mailings of moderate size and who wish to produce high quality mail pieces with wide swaths for easy reading and for easily accommodating addresses such as some foreign addresses having four or more lines of print.
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for producing pieces of mail includes mail handling assemblies; and a printing module connected to the mail handling assemblies and having a first printing position, a second printing position, a moveable carriage for moving to and from the first printing position and the second printing position, and a first printhead cartridge mounted at a first location on the moveable carriage and including a first printhead having a first path of movement with the moveable carriage at and through the first printing position and the second printing position. The printing module also includes a second printhead cartridge mounted at a second location on the moveable carriage for increasing a width of a swath printed by the first printhead cartridge and the second printhead cartridge. The second printhead cartridge includes a second printhead having a second path of movement with the moveable carriage at and through the first printing position and the second printing position. The apparatus for producing mail pieces further includes a first registration member located at the first printing position for maintaining a first gap between pieces of mail to be printed on by the first printhead and the second printhead, and a second registration member located at the second printing position for maintaining a second gap between itself and the first printhead and the second printhead.